Systems for sorting different items into orders are known. For example, U.S. Pats. No. 4,501,528 and 5,271,703 disclose systems which automatically pick items from designated storage locations and deposit them on a moving belt in groups of items corresponding to discrete orders. These patents are concerned with grouping items into an order, but are not concerned with also putting grouped items into a preselected sequence within the order. Moreover, the systems disclosed in these patents do not address the problem of taking a random succession of different items and not only grouping the randomly arranged items into orders but also putting the items into a preselected sequence within an order.
Thus, prior to the present invention, the items sorted into orders were not put into any particular sequence within an order. It was sufficient just to assemble the various items comprising an order and collect them all in the same location. There is a need, however, for not only sorting multiple items into an order, but also for putting the sorted items in a defined sequence within the order. For example, greeting cards sold at retail outlets are typically arranged on display racks in predetermined locations. Cards are received from a supplier in bundles, with each bundle being coded for placement at a particular predetermined location in the display racks. When a retail greeting card outlet places an order for greeting cards to replenish its inventory, it is desired that the order arrive with bundles of greeting cards being already arranged in a predetermined sequence, corresponding to the sequence in which the cards are displayed on the display racks, rather than with the bundles of cards being arranged randomly within a shipping container. Arranging the bundles of cards in the shipping container in the predetermined sequence enables the retail outlet to restock its display racks very efficiently. To restock, all a clerk needs to do is open the shipping container and move along the display racks in one direction, removing the card bundles from the shipping container in sequence and placing the cards on the display racks in the defined sequence as he goes.
The present invention provides a system that not only collects a plurality of different items, such as bundles of greeting cards, into an order corresponding to a particular retail location, but also arranges the bundles in a predetermined sequence within the order.